1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a singing voice synthesizing method, a singing voice synthesizing apparatus, a program, a recording medium and a robot apparatus, in which the singing voice is synthesized from performance data.
This application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-079151 filed on Mar. 20, 2003, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of Related Art
The technique for synthesizing the singing voice from given singing data by e.g. a computer is already known, as seen in Cited Patent Publication 1.
The MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) data is representative performance data and is a de-facto standard in relevant business circles. Typically, the MIDI data is used for controlling the musical sound by controlling a digital sound source termed a MIDI sound source (sound source operating by the MIDI data, such as a computer sound source or a sound source of an electronic musical instrument). A MIDI file, such as SMF (standard MIDI file), into which can be introduced lyric data, can be used for automatically formulating a music score with the lyric.
The attempt to exploit the MIDI data as parametric representations (special data representations) of the singing voice or phoneme segments making up the singing voice has also been proposed, as seen in the Cited Patent Publication 2.
Although attempts were made in these conventional techniques to express the singing voice within the data format of the MIDI data, these attempts were made after all with the sense of controlling the musical instruments, without exploiting the lyric data inherently owned by the MIDI.
Moreover, the MIDI data, prepared for musical instruments, could not be changed to the singing voice without corrections.
The speech synthesizing software, which reads an E-mail or a home page aloud, is being put to sale by many producers, including ‘Simple Speech’ manufactured and sold by SONY CORPORATION. However, the manner of reading aloud is in no way different from the manner of reading an ordinary text.
A mechanical apparatus for performing movements like those of the human being, using electrical or magnetic operations, is termed a “robot”. The robot started to be used extensively towards the end of the sixties. Most of the robots used were industrial robots, aimed at automating the production or performing unmanned operations in plants.
In recent years, developments of utility robots, supporting the human life as a partner to the human being, that is, supporting the human activities in various aspects in our everyday life, such as in our living environment are progressing. In distinction from the industrial robots, these utility robots have the ability of learning the methods of adapting themselves to the human being with different personalities or to the variable environments in variable aspects of the living environments of the human beings. For example, pet type robots, simulating the bodily mechanism or movements of animals, such as quadruples, e.g. dogs or cats, or so-called humanoid robots, simulating the bodily mechanism or movements of the human being, walking on two legs, are already being put to practical use.
As compared to the industrial robots, these utility robots are capable of performing variable movements, with emphasis placed on entertainment properties, and hence are also termed entertainment robots. Some of these entertainment robots operate autonomously, responsive to the information from outside or to the inner states.
The artificial intelligence (AI), used in these autonomously operating robot apparatus, artificially realizes intellectual functions, such as inference or judgment, and moreover attempts to artificially realize the functions, such as feeling or instinct. Among the expression means for the artificial intelligence to outside, including visual expression means and expression means by natural languages, there is also the speech, as one of the functions expressing the natural language.    Cited Patent Publication 1            Japanese Patent No. 3233036            Cited Patent Publication 2            Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H 1-95798        
The above-described conventional speech synthesis technique utilizes data of special format. Or, even if the technique utilizes MIDI data, it cannot effectively exploit lyric data embedded therein, or sing aloud the MIDI data prepared for musical instruments.